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Category: Business

How To Move Up The Ranks: 4 Steps To Go From Employee To CEO In 2 Years

Some of the greatest success stories have the humblest roots. Take Apple, for example, the tech giant that began with virtually no capital in Steve Jobs parents’ basement.

It’s amazing how, with enough determination and a will to get the job done, nearly anyone can create a business that is incredibly prosperous.

That’s exactly what we see with the story of Matt Gray, who worked as unpaid employee at Herb, the largest online publication for news and culture in cannabis, until they made him their CEO.

Gray attributes his success to finding problems within the business and then quickly solving them. “At the end of the day a lot of these companies just need a hustler–someone to really get work done at a rapid pace,” he says. “My approach was to just bring as much onto my plate as possible… at the end of a term you’re irreplaceable because so much of the business relies on you.”

Listen for the details about how he managed to pull this off on this week’s podcast episode, “How To Grow A Business By 2000% In 2 Years w/ Herb’s CEO Matt Gray.”

Herb, formally The Stoner’s Cookbook, was originally started eight years ago by two New Zealanders as a user generated site for recipes for cooking with cannabis. Over the last few years, it has evolved dramatically to produce viral, data-driven content around culture, news, and entertainment surrounding the cannabis industry worldwide.

Since Gray joined the Herb team two years ago, he’s helped them grow 2000%. His commitment to setting aggressive goals has elevated their Facebook page above the 6 million follower mark, and built a solid case for his position as CEO.

“Let your work speak for itself,” Gray says. “If you’re having to sell people extremely hard on what your worth is to something, then chances are the actual work you’re doing isn’t speaking for itself. It should pretty obvious to them whether they need you on board or not.”

Want to learn how to start from the bottom and land yourself as CEO? Follow these steps:

Take relentless action

When Gray decided he wanted to leave his tech company and switch industries to the cannabis space, he reached out to 2,500 people in 3 days to get his first lead. The way he saw it, “the more people I talked to something really positive had to happen, it is kind of like a numbers game.” If you want to switch careers or move into a new space, follow Gray’s lead. Every person you talk to will open doors for you in some capacity, even if it is to introduce you to someone else. Stay committed and the results you want will come.

Get on the calendar

Securing a spot on the CEO or founder’s calendar for even a brief phone chat will immediately give you an advantage. You will be able to listen for what is going on in the business and share what you can do to help and get involved. Gray says his first step was sending a simple, compelling email to the company’s founder. He stated his interests, skill set, and availability to work for next to nothing under the subject line, “10 minutes to chat on Tuesday?”

Most CEO’s are super busy, so keep in mind your email will probably be read on mobile. Keep it short and state the value upfront so you can make it an easy “yes” for the CEO to take the next step.

Be a team player

Learning how to mobilize the team and hold each person accountable is what will demonstrate your case for being a leader within the company. “Leaders create leaders,” is what millennial thought leader, Gerard Adams says. Be willing to lead by example in your actions and treat every challenge or problem like it is your responsibility. Your actions won’t go unnoticed and when it is time to make key decisions, your name will be at the top of mind.

Figure out how to help the company grow

When you are able to contribute to the company’s bottom line, your position and value solidify at a higher rank. Start by looking at what existing outlet will help the company’s bottom line grow the fastest and work from there. It could be in direct sales, email marketing, customer retention, fulfillment of services, etc. For Gray, he saw it was with social media and decided to put all his attention on growing their Facebook page. In just 2 years he got the page to over 6 million fans and an audience reach of upwards of 50 million. Ultimately allowing Herb to exponentially monetize and grow and making him the clear choice for CEO.

And the rest is history. How will you write your own?

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
5 Steps To Perfecting A Pitch And Selling With Purpose

We’ve all heard or seen a sales pitch. It goes something like, “look at my this, you need this, let me tell you about this, you should want this, you should really buy this,” etc.

But, that’s the trouble with the traditional sales pitch – it is often unsolicited, immediately putting the other person on the defensive. They feel the need to defend themselves while the one doing the selling feels the need to jump.

It’s highly unlikely you’re going to close a sale when you’ve created a wall between you and your client. The key is, according to the host of The Foundation podcast and founder of the group Selling On Purpose, Frank Mocerino, to “help facilitate your client in discovering what they want and align yourself with them.”

Mocerino has personally negotiated over $6 million in deals, across a wide range of markets, in the last few years. He’s developed a unique method of negotiation based on the psychology of decision-making and the principle of selling on the foundation of integrity.

I caught up with him to talk about his game-changing sales strategy on this week’s podcast episode, “How To Overcome Your Fear Of Selling w/ Selling On Purpose’s Founder Frank Mocerino.”

Mocerino shares, “You should just throw the idea that you should pitch someone out the window. The way people decide [to bite is after] they need to come to an understanding from themselves. Once I started understanding the way people were actually making decisions, what I said didn’t matter as much, my tonality didn’t matter as much, but what mattered was that I was there to help people discover undiscovered problems in their life or business.”

Mocerino has found that the secret to selling boils down to these five steps:

Step #1: Ask Powerful Questions

In order to align yourself with your client, you need to understand what is going on in their mind when they are making a decision. Your role is to ask them powerful, clarifying questions to help them uncover the root of their problem before identifying a solution. Think about the last time you bought a car. If the salesperson was effective, they asked you what you were gonna use the car for, what features you wanted, how important gas mileage was, etc before you made the purchase.

Step #2: Connect Them To What They Really Desire

Ask them what their ideal experience would be like a year from now — where they want to be financially, the kind of experiences they want to have, the freedom this would afford them, and what this looks and feels like. Shift the focus away from their problems and connect them to what they are truly after.

Step #3: Facilitate A Discovery Process For Them

Don’t tell them what they need — help them to come to an understanding of things for themselves. Your ability to listen is what’s most important here. Mocerino says, “be interested rather than interesting.”

Step #4: Align Their Solution With What You Can Offer

Most people don’t realize they have a broken decision-making process.This is the trick to getting them to feel like they thought of your product before you even mentioned it. When they’ve identified a solution, frame your product as the perfect match.

Step #5: Refine Your Approach

Make sure to take note of what isn’t working, as well, so you can make adjustments and be more effective in the future. Mocerino says, “If you’re anything like me, you just want to focus on the things you’re doing well, and if somebody tells you that something isn’t working for them, or they question what you’re saying, you want to go bury your head in the sand. But that was exactly where I knew I could learn the most from.”

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
The Feel-Good Business Model: Why Sticking To What You Know Can Lead To Success

Imagine if you could build your business doing only what feels good to you, all the time. No more spending countless hours learning how to code, trying to become Instagram famous, hacking the SEO algorithm, or self-bookkeeping. Sound impossible?

Meet 28-year-old Jordan Gray, a relationship expert with five best-selling books on Amazon and an audience of over 20 million readers. He’s achieved all this in the three years since launching his personal website.

Gray’s secret to success is what I call the “Feel-Good Business Model,” the simple idea of operating your business exclusively around your core strengths–the things you enjoy doing and do well.

Gray details the Feel-Good approach to his business on this week’s podcast episode, “Why Being 100% Yourself is the #1 Life & Business Hack.”

On his entrepreneurial path, Gray witnessed many of his peers striving to adhere to the “correct method” for success. They believed in a “tried and true” path that involved doing things they didn’t actually want to do, but believed they had to do, in order to make it.

Gray shares, “There are so many things that were constantly being offered up to me, people saying you have to know this, you have to do this, you have to be at least self-sufficient in these things, etc.”

With so much advice out there, and the rise of a $9 billion coaching industry, it is easy to get overwhelmed in sorting information. Focusing on the next “big hit tactic” or the newest social media channel fosters “shiny object syndrome,” a type of thinking that can distract you from your own organic process, while wasting time and defeating passion.

Distinguishing your own set of criteria for what feels good to you and only spending time on the things that are aligned with your core strengths is a key to being successful.

For Gray, that criteria is a unique blend of “stubbornness and ignorance.” Stubbornness to only do what brings him the most joy, and ignorance to everything else. Gray shares, “There was a very conscious shrugging off of all the things that didn’t speak to me… For me, writing’s really easy, coaching’s really easy, so from day one I was like ‘What am I really good at?’ How do I basically only do that and stay as ignorant as possible about everything else that aren’t my core gifts?”

Once you start operating from this new “Feel-Good” criteria you can more easily say no to the things that don’t fit inside it. As Gray goes on to say, “I don’t want to learn how to point a domain name, or set up my WordPress site, or be my own bookkeeper. I don’t even consult, or send out polls and go ‘Hey, what do you guys want to hear about now?’”

His commitment to honoring what felt true for him in each moment helped him generate enough revenue to outsource the things he didn’t enjoy doing, so that he could continue to focus energy into his gifts and profit from what he loved.

With an audience of 20 million readers only three years since he started, Gray’s Feel-Good business model has undoubtedly worked out for him. Consider these three steps to implement the Feel-Good business model into your own life:

1. Hone in on your gifts. Your strengths are the access point to your contribution to the world. Identify what your top three gifts are and stick to them. You were born to do them, so be stubborn if you have to and financial success will follow.

2. Be authentic and you will attract the right group to support your mission. As Gray says, “if you are only willing to show up at 20%, then the best you can do is attract someone that is 20% aligned with you.” If you are willing to show up at 100%, even when it is uncomfortable, stretching, or scary, then you will be able to broadcast all of yourself to the world and attract a full match in line with your desire and intention.

3. Integrate your personal and professional lives. Life is no longer meant to be compartmentalized with strict lines between the personal and professional. The division between being “on/off work” is melting away as we are moving into greater autonomy with our self-expression. Allow yourself to bring play into your work life, and you will enjoy what you are doing and won’t feel burned out.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
How Volunteerism Can Help Kickstart Your Career

Sometimes it can be hard to get your first break.

Building credibility is one of the biggest challenges we face in the job market. When we’re first starting out, we often lack the experience necessary to get our foot in the door at the big companies we desire to work for.

According to a study by Millennial Branding and Beyond.com, “More than 70% of hiring managers say colleges are only ‘somewhat preparing’ students to enter the working world.” The ability to think critically, innovate, solve complex problems, and work well in a team are what employers say is missing.

One of the best strategies to building credibility early on is volunteering.

Beyond being a personally gratifying and rewarding experience, volunteer work can do wonders for your resume. It’s a testament to your character, helps you build a new skill set, and allows employers to connect to you on a more personal level.

Having a way to track these experiences is crucial, which is why Kelly Lovell, the founder of My Effect, has created a platform designed to help you build your impact resume, so you can showcase leadership and volunteer work.

Lovell and I caught up on this week’s podcast episode, where she shares about the platform, how it’s getting the attention of companies, like the Clinton Global Initiative, and how her past experiences with bullying inspired her to get started.

Lovell was drawn to create this technology because of the profound impact volunteering has had on her own life. She shares, “Volunteering equipped me with the experiences and skills I was missing to attract the supporters I needed. It was through volunteerism [that] I was able to understand my abilities because there is no pressure.” Adding, “You can try different things and if you are not good at it you can try something else. You really have a blank slate and through that blank slate I got to understand who Kelly was.”

My Effect’s technology allows volunteers to automatically track their impact: the hours you’ve spent, the number of people you’ve helped, and the dollars you’ve raised, all on one interface.

Lovell has found that organizations want to be able to see personal characteristics of their employees, beyond just their GPA or traditional resume. Prospective employees also want to know the company they work for is doing social good. My Effect’s goal is to host a community impact and engagement platform to capture that.

In today’s world, taking action for positive social change is no longer optional. Getting behind issues like helping the environment, ending poverty, fighting injustice and inequality is becoming the new standard. In reaction, companies are upgrading their business models, by donating a portion of proceeds to important causes or practicing sustainability, while individuals are being asked to evaluate their choices in where they spend their money and time.

In time where it is becoming increasingly relevant for businesses to consider public welfare in their models, volunteer work is a sought-after component on any resume.

In the spirit of National Volunteer Week, now is a great time to seek out opportunities to get involved. You’ll grow as a person, contribute to an important cause, and begin to build the experience you need to help you stand out and land your dream job.

Kelly says, “I find that volunteerism isn’t just a way to give back and make a difference in community. There is a lot of personal development and skill building that can benefit any entrepreneur from any age and profession.”

How will you get involved and advance your next career move?

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
How To Increase Your Value So Your Clients Will Want To Pay You More Money

“How much should I charge?” Is one of the questions I frequently hear from those that are just starting out or have hit a plateau in their business. It is as if that one question in and of itself can hold you back from taking the next step. I have seen close friends and colleagues struggle over coming up with the “right answer” and as a result they decide on a number that is unsatisfying or just enough.

There are countless examples of talented creatives, coaches, service providers, and emerging thought leaders like 16-year-old Madison McGregor who is launching a movement to unite Generation Z, that deliver great value yet, at the end of each month, the dollar amount they take home doesn’t reflect the value they put out. According to Next Web, “66% of founders pay themselves less than $50,000 per year” of the 11,160 startups surveyed worldwide.

Figuring out what you are worth and how much value the services or products you have to offer can be difficult. It is a challenge of not wanting to charge too much for fear of facing rejection, yet not wanting to charge too little and be in a constant state of survival.

Lynan Saperstein, the founder of Experience Experts, a boutique company that helps clients in the tourism industry create more reach and profit, encounters this question of quantifying value daily.

Saperstein shares on this week’s podcast episode her process for determining what you are worth.

As Saperstein sees it, worth “has to do with how you value yourself, your personal growth, your spirituality journey, and your willingness to continue to learn and understand yourself.” She believes investing in yourself is like investing in your business. Being willing to spend the money upfront to develop the relationship with yourself, your interpersonal skills, and your mindset play essential roles in your business.

For Saperstein, it was jumping to take a Reiki training, with the last few dollars she had in her savings account, several years ago when she was transitioning out of a period of healing from a car accident and losing her job. She knew she just had to do it, even if it was scary and exciting.

“I just kept following my highest excitement. Whatever inspired me that got me lit up and turned on, I did. I did a coaching training, then a marketing training, then I got to see what I was really good at. When I started business coaching I was just a magnet, clients started flying at me and I got to choose who I wanted to work with”, according to Saperstein.

Once you realize that every aspect of your life is connected; the component parts function harmoniously rather than independently of one another. When you take a composite perspective of your life, the lines between work, recreation, relationships, health, spirituality and leisure begin to fade. You relationship to value then begins to change and you can thus have greater confidence to charge more for the services you provide.

As you expand your skillset, keep in mind that skills that might not seem directly applicable to the type of service you provide or the industry you work in can actually work in your favor and help you to stand out. Oftentimes, unexpected skills fulfill an unmet need and cause others to choose you above the competition. In turn, your business becomes more attractive and you can raise your price.

According to Saperstein, “By bringing marketing or some skill set that is desperately needed in an industry or marketplace you can charge a lot, they are so grateful for you, and you can get extremely ridiculous results with them and a massive return on their investment. Ultimately, that is all they want.”

When you have done the work on yourself upfront, the process for putting a price tag on your worth can actually be quite simple. If you find yourself stuck, consider these three things:

How much you should charge starts with how much you value yourself. By transforming the relationship you have to yourself you will find more confidence in communicating your value to someone else.
You are the only one that can offer what you do. There are no real competitors because you are going to do it your own way and certain clients are going to respond to you instead of someone else.
You can always ask.“What is this worth to you? How much is a client or sale worth to them. Would you be willing to make the investment of 1 person or 10 people with me?” Once you get one yes, it opens up a gateway for another.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018